American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

membership organization with the mission of conserving wild birds and their habitats throughout the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

. ABC is the second

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

partner in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and works in cooperation with other groups and agencies, includin
The Bird Conservation Alliance
Partners in Flight, and the North American Bird Conservation Initiative.

Programs and projects

Latin America

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

American Bird Conservancy works with partner groups such as

Fundación ProAves Fundación ProAves is a nonprofit environmental organization in Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. Th ...

to purchase land that protects endangered bird habitat. They are also working with partner organizations to reduce the conversion of coffee farms that offer habitat to the cerulean warbler, by helping growers market premium beans as cerulean warbler-friendly. In Colombia they have helped to protect wintering bird habitat by partnering with Fundación ProAves to help create the first preserve dedicated to a single U.S. migrant, the Cerulean Warbler Bird Reserve. Also in Colombia, they helped fund an expedition in 2010 that discovered two nesting colonies of the endangered

Baudó oropendola The Baudó oropendola (''Psarocolius cassini'') is a species of bird in the family Icteridae. It is endemic to Colombia. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, which are threatened by destruction. As it is only known ...

, one of the rarest birds in the world with less than a dozen known birds before the discovery.

United States

Several organizations, including the American Bird Conservancy and the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...

, were commissioned by the U. S. Federal Government to study the US State of Birds in 2009. They found that 800 species of birds in the U.S. were "endangered, threatened or in significant decline", with more birds threatened in the state of

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

than any other region. The study found that 39% of ocean birds were declining in population. They also learned that conservation efforts are very effective at helping bird populations to recover, with positive increases in some wetland bird species due to

wetland conservation Wetland conservation is aimed at protecting and preserving areas of land including marshes, swamps, bogs, anfensthat are covered by water seasonally or permanently due to a variety of threats from both natural and Anthropogenic hazard, anthropoge ...

. In the U.S., they are trying to stop mountaintop mining in the

Appalachia Appalachia ( ) is a geographic region located in the Appalachian Mountains#Regions, central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains in the east of North America. In the north, its boundaries stretch from the western Catskill Mountai ...

s in order to protect vital breeding habitat. In 1996, after American Bird Conservancy threatened to sue the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

over the San Clemente loggerhead shrike (''Lanius ludovicicanus mearnsi'') whose habitat was formerly used by the Navy for bombardment training, the Navy agreed to take steps to protect the species and its

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

. ''Cats Indoors'' is a public education campaign by American Bird Conservancy to encourage control of

cat The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...

s in order to protect

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s from predation by cats. The objective of the Conservancy's campaign is that all domestic cats should be contained or leashed when outdoors or kept indoors. ABC believes that climate change is a critical threat to birds. Recognizing this fact, ABC supports renewable energy, including wind energy, and the transition away from fossil fuels. However, not every wind project is proposed in a suitable location. Some projects — sited in major bird migration routes or stopover sites — threaten huge numbers of birds. Some areas of the country are better suited to the development of wind energy than others. ABC has provided
wind risk assessment map
to help identify these places.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Environmental organizations based in Virginia Nature conservation organizations based in the United States Ornithological organizations in the United States BirdLife partners Organizations established in 1994 Bird conservation organizations